Wednesday, February 26, 2014

By the time I hit post on this, the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly will have begun its single day of hearings into Bill 122.
Looking to the agenda, the folks who've signed up to speak to legislators are mostly from the groups most affected by the bill-- unions representing those in the sector and school boards. Missing is the trustee / school board association for French-language Catholic schools in Ontario, though it may have submitted something to the committee in writing.
It's speaking in committee on Bill 122, but noting in my social feeds today that CUPE is reminding us they are angry the deals imposed under Bill 115 aren't being honoured by school boards.
The speaker who tweaked my curiosity is the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). I don't know who represents every employee group across all 72 publicly funded boards, but I'm not familiar with OPSEU representing any employees in K-12 in the province. Please comment below with an example should I be wrong on this. (Note comments below on OPSEU's role in some boards)
I'll post some additional thoughts on this in the days ahead as the Hansard transcripts become available. Also quite curious on whether there are any media in the committee room and whether anyone cares outside of those speaking. I certainly hope so, given this bill will define labour relations for the next round of contracts and will set the board for the game of chess expected to start later this year.